KENNY AND CATHY Schmitt of Merritt Island have been married 42 years. Cathy Schmitt took advantage of accelerated partial breast radiation recently to complete her treatment for breast cancer. “She would come home in the same mood as she had when she left, and I liked that,” Kenny Schmitt said.

Cathy Schmitt of Merritt Island didn’t have the kind of breast cancer journey her mother had 30 years ago. Schmitt was diagnosed in September with ductal carcinoma in situ. She was a candidate for oncoplastic breast surgery and a new kind of post-surgical radiation therapy called accelerated partial breast radiation.

Recently, the mother of six girls wrapped up successful treatment for it. “It wasn't scary. This was nothing compared to what I was worried about."

“When I started at Health First just 10 years ago, every patient who had even a lumpectomy was getting six weeks of radiation, and to the whole breast. Now, we’re doing partial breast, and we’re doing it over five days,” says Dr. Brendan Prendergast, Medical Director, Health First Radiation Oncology. “That is about as big of a change in a 10-year span as I can imagine.”

READ Cathy’s full story, including her family’s terrible history with the disease, in Space Coast Daily HERE.